In New York, a 20-Year-Old Policy Suddenly Prompts a Lawsuit

Since 1991, the Clean Halls program has allowed the NYPD to arrest apartment dwellers with little or no cause. Why is the city being so secretive -- and why are residents only now fighting back?

Jacqueline Yates, a 53-year-old
former correctional officer, is a resident of a Clean Halls building in the Bronx and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the NYPD. (Julie Turkewitz)

In late March, three civil rights groups filed a
class action lawsuit against the
New York City police department, alleging that a little-known crime-fighting program violated the
constitutional rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

The program, called Operation Clean Halls, permits police to conduct
vertical patrols inside and around private residences, seeking out trespassers
and drug crime. The lawsuit, which was filed by the NYCLU, LatinoJustice PRLDEF,
and the Bronx Defenders, questions whether the police have
overstepped their Fourth Amendment boundaries while
implementing the program. The suit alleges that officers have used Clean Halls
to make baseless stops
and trespassing arrests in primarily black and Latino neighborhoods, cuffing
residents in their own hallways as they stepped out to buy a bottle of ketchup,
or while they waited outside a girlfriend or sister's building.

The suit is part of a larger public outcry against the NYPD, which is also under fire for its surveillance of American
Muslims, its dealings with Occupy Wall Street protesters, and its increasingly
frequent practice of stopping and frisking black and Latino men. But few have pointed to the thick information wall
surrounding Operation Clean Halls, which has been in existence, in some form,
since 1991.

"The NYPD and New York City in general under [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg
operate on the premise that data is power," said Donna Lieberman, executive
director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. "They claim to develop public
policy based on 'The facts, ma'am, and only the facts.' At the same time, they
are as stingy as stingy can be about giving out the facts, which they and only
they have."

Clean Halls, also known as the Trespass
Affidavit Program, began in Manhattan under Mayor David Dinkins' administration, a time
when New York faced widespread homelessness, a faltering economy, and a
crack-fueled crime wave. While Dinkins was often criticized during his
administration, today he is credited with setting in
motion a series of policies that began to turn the city around -- including the
hiring of thousands of new police officers.

Clean Halls was one of his programs for buckling down on crime. To enroll, the police
department asks landlords to sign an affidavit, permitting officers to enter a
private building at any time and question and arrest unlawful loiterers.
Building owners provide the police with a tenant roster, and anyone not on that
roster, or who cannot give a reasonable explanation for presence in the
building, is subject to arrest.

The program later expanded into all five boroughs, but it's unclear how
fast it spread or how many landlords enrolled their buildings. The lawsuit's
text says there are 3,895 Clean Halls participants in Manhattan, and nearly
every building in the Bronx is enrolled. But the NYPD will not release the list
of residences registered for the program, saying the release of
this data would constitute an unwarranted invasion of landlords' personal
privacy.

New York also allows the police to conduct patrols inside
city-owned public housing buildings, as do many other cities across the nation.
In New York, though, patrols of public buildings are subject to a level of
transparency and regulation that the police department has not extended to private
Clean Halls buildings. A list of all public housing residences is available online, for example. And
in 2010, the police department amended the code of conduct for patrolling
inside public buildings, amid complaints of baseless stops and arrests.

Critics of Clean Halls argue that while the program may have legitimate crime-fighting
origins, the opaqueness surrounding it has allowed the program to expand
unchecked. "I want the police to be involved," said Jacqueline Yates, a 53-year-old
former correctional officer and resident of a Clean Halls building in the Bronx.
"We need them, there is no doubt about that. It's the way they go about
policing."

Yates, who is one of 13 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Clean Halls has
defined the past few years of her life: Visitors have stopped coming for Sunday
dinners, stymied by frequent searches as they leave the building. And she has
taken up a semi-permanent post near her fourth floor window, intervening two to
three times a week, she said, when her sons are searched by police in their
courtyard.

While residents in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods may never hear of
Clean Halls, people in several parts of the Bronx said that the program's
implementation is so intrusive and haphazard that it has placed parts of the
borough under
siege. Frequent searches and baseless arrests, they said, are not merely
inconveniences. They also deepen a long-standing schism between law enforcement
and neighbors, disrupt employment and schooling, and discourage visits from
family and friends, unraveling community ties.

"At this point, I'd rather come home and deal with a robbery than deal
with being stopped by the police," said Dominick Walters, a 20-year-old college
student who has been arrested twice for trespassing while visiting friends or
acquaintances. Both cases were dismissed, but not before both Walters and the
city spent a considerable amount of time and money clearing his name. After his
first arrest, Walters spent four days in a cell, sleeping in the dress coat and
tie he had donned that day for work as a salesman. By the time he emerged, he'd
missed two days on the job.

Spokespeople for the police department and the Manhattan District
Attorney's office declined to speak to The Atlantic. But the NYPD has
argued that Clean Halls is a necessary part of a crime-fighting tool kit. In
March, for example, police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne pointed
out that in the 20 years since the program began, violent crime has declined
dramatically in the city.

While the constitutionality of Clean Halls is unclear, it is certain
that the program will continue to expand unless police Commissioner Raymond
Kelly is forced to make a change. For now, once an owner enrolls a building in
the program it remains a participant into perpetuity, regardless of whether it
continues to be a high-crime residence.

"When you think that it's normal for the cops to stop you every day, all
day, and that's the thought that you have in your head, you don't think
anything -- college, a job -- is going to make a difference," says Yates,
referring to her teenage sons. "It's hard for someone who's not around to
realize how deep it goes."